Billy Starkey is sent to prison at age 18 when he refuses to provide testimony against reputed mobsters, after two of his friends who agree to cooperate with law enforcement authorities are found shot to death. Upon his release, he finds himself back in a world of crime. He and his girl friend flee to Cedar Key, Florida, take on new identities and hide. When they are discovered by an intrepid Federal agent, after being set-up by a confidential informant gone bad, Billy must infiltrate a gang of drug smugglers who steal clams off of Florida's Gulf coast to avoid being sent back to prison. Escaping to Bocas del Toro, a remote and sparsely inhabited island off of the northern coast of Panama in the Caribbean Sea, seems to be his only way out.